Well, it took long enough getting here, but the New Year has finally arrived, and that seems to mean, for both the broadcast networks and cable, that it's time to roll out a bunch of new shows. Or, at the very least, new episodes.
I could be wrong, but I just don't recall so much TV starting up so quickly after the new year in the past. I always felt like I used to have an extra week to wallow in my new show-less misery. But, alas, my wallowing in that sort of misery is not to be. Now, instead I get to wallow in my misery about returning shows not being quite as good as I would like.
As an example, let's take a look at Damages, which begins its second season this Wednesday night on FX. Now, as you may recall, I wasn't a terribly big fan of the first season. I thought initially that it was a show with potential, but as the season progressed I decided that the writers were trying to be too clever for their own good and they had therefore ignored a myriad of plot/logic flaws. I then became further disenchanted when Glenn Close, who was great in the show, received tons of awards notice in various Best Actress categories. You see, while she was great in the first season, it would take someone who didn't watch more than a couple of screeners to believe that she was the lead and not a supporting actress. That sort of thing happens all the time (please note, Forest Whitaker was outstanding in The Last King of Scotland, but he wasn't the lead in the film), and it never fails to upset me.
So, it was with some trepidation that I sat down to watch the first two episodes of the new season of Damages last night. The show has opted to stick with the structure from last season of starting an episode in the future and then going to the past for the main plot, and, presumably, by the end of the season will have the present meet the future. This time around though, it's not a murder mystery we get, but rather Ellen Parson (Rose Byrne) holding someone at gunpoint. It's far less dramatic. Far, far, less. Of course, as the show was overly dramatic with its scenes from the future in season one, that could be a good thing.
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